Week one: complete.

Perhaps it's that I've been biking nearly 20 miles most days of the week or the fact that I haven't orgasmed for the same amount of time, but I've been having the most vivid, memorable dreams: and not all of them are sexual.

Mind you, most ARE in some way involving the opposite sex or the female form, with only a few blatantly pornographic (indeed, one dream was neither-- I was a wolf, hunting someone-- yet I still woke up unusually aroused), but the only consistency is that they are there, every night and morning, at the very tip of my thoughts when I wake up and often lingering after.

Thus, my first week of the sex-fast has been one filled with fantasy.

The interesting thing about this little experiment is that while, yes, I get very stiffly aroused and, yes, I give second and third looks to every and any woman with a wisp of flesh showing (thank god for Lakeshore jogging paths), I also found that, after the first few days, I'm not easily aroused. The first day? Drop of a hat-- second, third, a stray thought could get me going.

But then around the fifth I found that I'm not as constantly hard as one would assume, considering a pop culture that SCREAMS that men are horny beasts-- especially without any manual relief.

The truth, it seems, lies in the middle-- I think I've moved a bit passed the physical and into the psychological. I'm not hard at the drop of a hat but my mind is still pretty preoccupied.

Are these clues to the supposed "sexual energy" some gurus of abstinence are so adamant about? I'm a believer in energy, in the non-spiritual sense: I believe we pass on subtle behavioral cues that influence group behaviors, whether you realize it or not. So, perhaps, there is a sexual energy but it is only the build-up of hormonal tensions then expressed in interpersonal interactions.

In the mean time, I find myself more focused on the physical, again: daily, I find myself distracted by the desire to do push-ups, pull ups or get a ride in.

Mind you, that may be tied to hormones crying out for relief: the "Look good, drop fat, get chicks" model.

Indeed, I've actually thought more about dating, more than I have in some months. I idly peruse OKCupid. I listlessly click pretty faces. I passively hunt, late into the night. Still, for now, it's only looking.

I'm curious to see if this is going to make me more aggressive in my interactions with women I don't know: aggression being something that only manifests itself in me when I've been drinking.

The only thing I'm sure about, in this little experiment, is that it is very, very hard to complete-- no pun intended.

This is going to be one long, hard month.

No pun intended.

The Sex Fast. Week 1

It occurred to me the other day that I had stopped enjoying sex.

Not to say sex wasn't enjoyable-- it was, as far as it goes. What I noticed was that, enjoyable as it was, I was less and less there as it was happening.

There I'd be, in bed with some wonderful girl or another, and my mind would be elsewhere-- the passion, the fire, would be elsewhere. For a while, the only thing that really worked for booze: properly drunk, I would bowl a girl over like a far-sighted caveman, drooling and slobbering until I got my last "grunt."

Not my best performances, I'm sure.

Truth was, and is, I had been in a sexual funk-- no interest in hunting Big Game and, if a deer happen to stray into the line of my phallic metaphor, no real interest in pulling the trigger either.

Worse yet, I didn't even want it alone. Every orgasm was a limp cough, a fleeting spark without a fire. The worst time to be disappointed in yourself is when your masturbating.

So I got an idea. And by "got," I mean stole.

Some guy had posted in a forum about how he had gone without an orgasm for an entire month-- no sex (he was married, so it wasn't hard-- har har), no masturbation, no nothing.

Eureka.

Since yesterday, August 19th, I have gone without touching myself and will do so for 30 days.

And you, lucky readers, will be along for the ride.

Like smoking, I hear the first week is the hardest (har har): so, a week from now, I'll report again on how my thing fares.

As for right now, I don't feel any different. No blue balls, no leering at high schoolers, no morning wood. But, my friends, we shall see.

If I don't report back by the end of the 30 days, assume I've gone on a killing spree.

(by the way, how is this about masculinity or feminism? Seriously, a 30 day fast from sex? What better way to find out what a man truly is... when he's not trying to get laid.)